An Erroneous Assumption
by Pir8grl
Summary: In 1939 Romania, the Doctor is mistaken for French spy Jean-Francois Mercier. Crossover with Spies of Warsaw TV miniseries. Timeline: For Spies of Warsaw, shortly after the final scene of the miniseries. For Doctor Who, sometime after Tooth and Claw.
1. Chapter 1

**Bucharest, Romania**  
**Autumn 1939**

Anna Skarbek cuddled luxuriously into the feather bed and pillows. The hotel bed was pure heaven, after days of sleeping on the benches of the railway carriage.

"Enjoy it while you can," Jean-Francois Mercier murmured into her hair, his hands lazily stroking over her shoulders. "As soon as they get us a new locomotive, we're off again."

Anna was silent for so long, he thought she'd drifted off. "I miss my mother," she said quietly.

"I know," Jean-Francois replied, tightening his arms around her.

"I don't think she would have survived this trip."

"I would have made it work," he promised her.

"I know," Anna agreed, lacing her fingers through his. "Do you think she'll be safe?"

He sighed in the darkness. "She's an old woman, in a convalescent hospital, in the country. There's nothing of any strategic value to make the place a target, and there are rules among civilized men concerning such things. I think she's as safe as anyone can be, right now."

Anna bit her lip, knowing this was not the moment to comment on the predilections of uncivilized men, such as they'd encountered on the other side of the border. Her mother was as safe and comfortable as could be expected right now, and she would simply have to hang on to that.

* * *

Rose Tyler stared with wide eyes at the centuries-old stone buildings, capped with graceful domes. The Doctor stared with wide eyes at his lovely companion, garbed in a suitably modest dress of sea-green silk, trimmed with bits of wispy lace. An intricately woven shawl was draped over her shoulders. He'd bought it for her when the breeze proved to be a trifle sharp.

"S'beautiful," Rose breathed.

"It certainly is," the Doctor agreed.

"Where are we, exactly?" Rose wanted to know, linking both arms through his.

"Bucharest, Romania. 1939." He made a show of licking one finger and holding it up to catch the breeze. "Autumn."

"Bucharest, 1939. So, no vampires?" Rose teased.

"I'd have thought werewolves in Scotland were quite enough, thank you very much."

"Wait a minute - 1939 - what about the war?"

"It's started already, to the west, in Poland."

"But not here?"

"Not yet. The king has adopted a policy of neutrality. Right now, this is a world holding its breath."

"I don't understand this neutrality rubbish. I mean, they tried it in England, too, didn't they?" Rose asked.

"They did, indeed."

"But why? How could people just want to stand by when there was something so…_**evil** _going on?"

The Doctor smiled at her affectionately. "You have the perspective of someone who was born long after it was all over," he reminded her. "It's only been twenty years for them since the last war. People remember it very clearly and they don't want to go through all that again, not if there's any way 'round it." 

* * *

Anna wrinkled her nose as she dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing since Poland. She'd washed her underthings in the sink last night, but still… "How long do you think it will be, before we leave?"

"Hopefully no more than a few hours," Jean-Francois replied.

"I'm going out to buy some clothes."

"No. We may have to leave on very short notice, and in case you've forgotten, this isn't a pleasure tour."

"I'm not talking about ordering a trousseau," Anna insisted stubbornly, "just getting a change of clean clothing."

"All right, but be as quick as you can."

"I will," she agreed, stretching up on her toes to kiss him quickly.

"You can order your trousseau in Paris!" he promised.

"I'll hold you to that!" Anna said merrily from the doorway. 

* * *

Two men observed the couple walking arm in arm down the street from their vantage point in a parked vehicle.

"You're sure that's Mercier?" the driver asked, eyeing the man's odd clothing and unkempt hair.

"Yes. I've seen him before," the passenger replied.

"We could just shoot him," the driver suggested.

"Yes, because a corpse will be able to tell us all the details of his mission!"

"I've heard that Mercier is a hard man. What makes you think we'll get any information out of him?"

The man in the backseat smirked evilly. "A man in Mercier's profession should never take a lover…it makes him vulnerable." 

* * *

Anna hurried back to the hotel, carrying a small parcel of basic clothing items. A laughing couple on the other side of the street caught her attention. The woman smiled adoringly at her companion, a man who looked startlingly like Jean-Francois. As Anna watched, a car rolled up alongside of them, and two men got out. One cracked the man in the long brown coat across the back of the head with the butt of his pistol, while the other shoved the fiercely struggling young woman into the boot of the car. They sped off, leaving the man slumped on the pavement.

Anna pressed back against the storefront, horrified. She knew this was exactly the reason why Jean-Francois hadn't wanted her to leave their hotel room. She knew - absolutely _**knew**_ - that the best and safest thing for her to do was to return to the hotel immediately and tell Jean-Francois what she'd seen. Only…the man looked _**so**_ much like him. She crossed the street. 

* * *

The Doctor groaned as he tried to push himself upright. Even a Time Lord's physiology wasn't proof against being smashed across the back of the skull with a chunk of steel. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to focus his vision. A puddle of blue-green swam before his eyes - Rose's shawl, dropped on the pavement. He reached for it, and staggered forward, losing his balance.

Strong arms steadied him, before he could fall forward. "Rose…" he moaned.

"No, my name is Anna," his savior informed him.

The Doctor blinked rapidly, trying to focus his gaze on the young woman who was holding him upright. She was lovely, he noted absently, with porcelain skin and dark hair that waved softly around her face.

"Good God!" she breathed. "You really do look just like him!"

"Like who?"

"My fiancé."

* * *

Jean-Francois paced the hotel room irritably. He should never have allowed her out of his sight. The stakes were simply too high. What if they'd been followed somehow? What if Anna was recognized? He'd just about worked himself up to the point of going out to look for her when there was a soft tap at the door, and Anna's voice calling his name.

He opened the door, and in the blink of an eye, the act of pulling Anna into his arms shifted into him pushing her behind him and leveling his sidearm at the man in the doorway.

"Who the hell are you, sir?"

"I'm called the Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

The Doctor sighed resignedly. "Just the Doctor. And would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else?"

"Anna, what were you thinking?" Jean-Francois hissed, his aim never wavering. "Who is this man, and how could you bring him here?"

"_**Look**_ at him," she replied.

"I am looking. Who are you?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, which I'm not particularly inclined to do while you're pointing a gun at me." The Doctor stared at his doppelganger, who showed no sign of backing down. "All right. Fine," he capitulated. "I was strolling down the street with someone _**very**_ dear to me, when two distinctly unpleasant men pulled up beside up us, hit me over the head and made off with my companion. Now, if you know anything at all that can help me get her back - fine. If not, I'll be on my way."

"Jean-Francois," Anna said urgently, "I think they thought he was you."

"And that his friend was you," he concluded. He cursed himself for a weak-minded fool. He should have insisted that they sleep in the railway carriage. He should never have let Anna out of his sight.

The Doctor drummed his fingers against the doorframe. "All right. You have no idea who I am, so you don't realize just how very calm and patient I'm being right now, but my patience is about at an end. If you know anything - anything at all - about who those men are, and where they might have taken Rose Tyler, then you tell me, right now. Otherwise, get out of my way."

"I think you forget, sir, which of us is holding the gun," Jean-Francois reminded him.

The Doctor slowly drew himself up to his full height, and all traces of mirth seemed to drain from his countenance. "D'you really think I give a damn about your gun?"

Anna's fingers dug into Jean-Francois's shoulder. He shrugged her off impatiently, not breaking eye contact with the Doctor.

"Anna, get back."

"We have to help him!"

"We'll do no such thing. We _**can't**_, Anna. You know that."

"They took an innocent girl because they thought she was me."

"And I am very sorry, but what we're doing is too important. We can't risk it. Not for anything or anyone. I'm sorry," he repeated.

The Doctor eyed him coolly. "You're French, in Romania, the war is just days old, you're armed, and you're on the run from something. At this moment in history, people are either running from the Nazis or the Russians, and neither has a very savory reputation, so I don't fancy the idea of my friend being in their hands a single nanosecond, so you are going to tell me anything at all that might possibly help me get her back!"

Abruptly making a decision, Jean-Francois grabbed the Doctor's arm and yanked him inside the room, shutting the door. "This is not a discussion for a public corridor."

"Agreed."

Anna eyed both men curiously. "He could be your twin brother."

"Perhaps. If he were dressed decently and visited a barber."

"Oi! I'll have you know, Janis Joplin gave me this coat! 'Course, she hasn't been born yet…"

Jean-Francois looked sharply at Anna, who shrugged and said, "They did hit him on the head."

"Perhaps a cool cloth?" Jean-Francois suggested.

"Of course," Anna replied, heading for the loo. She returned a moment later with a washrag wrung out in cold water.

The Doctor accepted it with a grateful smile, hissing as it touched the lump on the back of his head. "Let's try this again, shall we? I'm the Doctor. Some very bad people have taken my friend. You're going to help me get her back."

"Jean-Francois Mercier. I'm sorry about your friend, but I simply don't know who took her, and I have no time or resources to spare to help you look. I'm truly sorry."

Anna stared from one man to the other, then took her fiancé's hand. "What if it was me? It could have been."

"Anna. I -" His voice trailed off as duty and compassion warred within him.

The Doctor looked at the other man, empathy filling his ancient eyes. "It's moments like this, when you think how much easier it would be, if you never let anyone inside your heart."

Jean-Francois nodded slowly. He lifted Anna's hand to his lips and gently kissed it. "All right. We really don't have any time to spare, but…if they took your friend, believing her to be Anna, that means they want something from me."

"So they'll be in contact with you."

"Sooner, rather than later, I should think." 


	2. Chapter 2

The two men eyed their captive with new-found respect. Both sported numerous scratches and bruises.

"How long will the chloroform work?"

"Do I look like a physician? There is more in the bottle, should we need it."

"She sounds English. Are we sure she's Mercier's woman?"

"You're the one who identified him! Let's find the good Colonel and deliver our proposal. We'll see soon enough." 

* * *

Colonel Antoni Pakulski heaved a sigh of relief when he saw Anna and Jean-Francois enter the railway yard, accompanied by a man in a long brown coat, skulking behind his upturned coat collar. "I was about to send Marek out after you."

"Is the locomotive ready?" Jean-Francois asked tersely.

"No, but I don't like the idea of our people being scattered all over the city."

"Who else is out there?"

"I had to send some men out for supplies. Who is this?"

"It would take far too long to explain. We've got to go out again."

"No!"

"Yes," Jean-Francois insisted. "Someone knows I'm here. I need to take care of it. Anna, I want you to stay here, with Antoni."

She nodded, wide-eyed with apprehension.

Jean-Francois leaned in and kissed her forehead. "It'll be fine, I promise. Stay here."

"Do you want to take Marek with you?" Antoni asked.

"No. You need him here. Could I trouble one of your men for a cap of some sort? And a pistol for my friend."

Marek produced a battered leather cap from his pocket and a pistol from the back of his belt.

Jean-Francois jammed the cap low on his forehead, shading his face as much as possible. He checked the pistol and held it out to the Doctor.

"No," the Doctor replied, straightening abruptly.

Antoni and Marek both stared in shock at the two men's close resemblance.

Jean-Francois stepped up toe-to-toe with the Doctor. "The ones who took your friend know who I am. They _**cannot** _be allowed to report my whereabouts to their superiors. Do you understand that?"

"I don't like guns." The Doctor's words were simple enough, but his tone was implacable.

"Are you a coward, sir?" Jean-Francois demanded.

"If you like. Better than killer, any day."

"I'm a soldier. I kill when I must. I take no pleasure in it. How did you make it through the war?"

"I made it through a greater war than you can possibly imagine. I did things that I will regret until the end of time itself. And I vowed I'd never walk that path again."

"The people who have your friend are very dangerous," Jean-Francois explained, as if speaking to a simpleton. "They will not hesitate to use deadly force. Do you understand that? Do you understand that if they realize their mistake, they might simply kill her out of hand?"

"Don't," the Doctor said flatly. "Don't even suggest such a thing."

The Doctor ruthlessly tamped down the tidal wave of rage that was building within him. Saving the world, but losing her, was no longer an option, if it ever truly had been. It seemed a lifetime since his former self had said those words, but he suspected that if things had gone wrong that day in Downing Street, he might not have troubled himself to walk out of the wreckage.

"Our interests coincide for the time being. You have a mission to accomplish, and I have a friend to find. But I won't carry a gun."

Jean-Francois looked at him sharply. "What do you know of my mission?"

The Doctor huffed impatiently, rapidly tiring of trading words while Rose was in danger. "You're a soldier, a descendant of a noble house, fleeing from the front lines of a war. The only way you would do that with your honor intact is if you were protecting something; something that will be needed to rebuild when all this bloodshed and insanity finally ends."

"You say 'when,'" Jean-Francois observed. "Most people would say 'if.'"

"I'm not most people," the Doctor replied.

"Who _**are**_ you?" Antoni demanded.

"I'm the Doctor."

"That's no answer," Marek said, his hand hovering near his sidearm.

"It's all the answer you're going to get." The Doctor's gaze shifted back to Jean-Francois, to the eyes so very much like his own. "Now, I'm going to go get my friend back. Are you coming?" And he turned, and strode out of the railway yard. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Just stroll about, in plain sight," Jean-Francois advised the Doctor. "I'm fairly sure the people who have your friend will make contact."

"What about you?"

"I'll be near. Don't look 'round for me, but if you need me, I'll be there."

"I hope you're right about this. There's just so much time I'm going to waste parading up and down the street on the off chance that they might turn up. I give this no more than half an hour, and then we try something else. Thirty minutes, d'you hear me?" Wondering at the lack of argument forthcoming, the Doctor glanced around, but Jean-Francois had vanished into the mass of pedestrian traffic. "Blimey," he muttered under his breath, "you're good."

The Doctor jammed his hands into his pockets and sunk his head down into his coat collar, then recalled abruptly that he was meant to be recognized, now, and straightened up. He made some show of window shopping as he sauntered slowly down the sidewalk. He stared at a display of ladies' silk dresses - perhaps the last real silk they'd see here until long after the war - and thought how much Rose would love to see them.

In all his travels, he'd seen a great many things that others regarded as deities. He'd never really paid them much heed, but now, he called upon anyone in the whole vast universe who might happen to be listening to keep her safe. Of course, his Rose was clever, and capable, and tougher than she looked, but still, he'd be glad of a bit of celestial intervention, just the same.

The Doctor was so deep in thought that he barely noted the man approaching him at a brisk, business-like pace. He wore a dark coat, and a hat with the brim pulled low, shading his face. He was startled out of his reverie when the man jostled him roughly. He moved on, without offering an apology, leaving the Doctor clutching a sealed envelope.

The Doctor moved on down the pavement, until he heard a low whistle issue from a side street. Turning the corner, he found himself face to face with Jean-Francois.

"Well?" the Frenchman demanded impatiently.

The Doctor handed over the envelope, and Jean-Francois tore it open and pulled out a single sheet of paper, scanning the contents. "They propose a simple, straightforward exchange. Me for her. And they've given us quite detailed instructions to find the place."

"Oh, of course they have," the Doctor agreed, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

"What have you got to smile about?" Jean-Francois demanded.

"Rose is all right," the Doctor replied, still grinning.

"How could you know such a thing?"

"Because the fellow who passed me this had a shiner under his right eye, and scratches on the backs of his hands."

"Your young lady sounds quite formidable."

"Oh, you've no idea. She gets it from her mum." The Doctor sobered then, and drew in a deep breath. "Right, then. Let's go get Rose."

Jean-Francois raised an eyebrow. "Just the two of us?"

"Fine. I'll go alone."

"You're not even armed!"

"I'm not carrying a gun," the Doctor corrected. "It's not at all the same thing." The Oncoming Storm was beginning to gather, deep in his eyes, and Jean-Francois fell back an uneasy step. "You have no idea who I am, or what I am capable of. I know what's coming. Bombs will fall on this city. Buildings will collapse. Windows will shatter. History says it happened here. If need be, it can happen a bit sooner. Do you understand me? Do you understand that there is _**nothing**_ I will not do to get her back?"

The Frenchman swallowed thickly. These were the words of a madman, and yet…those eyes didn't glimmer with madness, but rather an unshakeable belief in the truth of his declarations. "Your young lady's safety is your primary concern. I think the two of us, together, can rescue her without causing the wholesale destruction of the city."

The Doctor exhaled explosively, and the unseen aura of power seemed to drain away. "Why are you helping me?" he asked.

"I'm protecting the integrity of my mission. Helping you is just incidental."

"You've got men. You could just flush the culprits out and shoot them. Why help me?"

"Because…if they had taken Anna, I would have torn this city apart, stone by stone, to get her back."

"Why?" the Doctor asked, with gentle curiosity.

"Because…when my wife died, I thought my heart had gone into the grave with her. I was dead, inside. I was certain I'd never truly love again."

"And then you met Anna."

"Yes. How did you -?"

"Because that was me, until I met Rose." 


End file.
